Article

2011-05-15 Arabia

Blackwater founder builds foreign force in UAE

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Posted by tipper 2011-05-15 09:49|| || Front Page|| [8 views ] Top

#1 Corporate mercenary armies like this are the wave of the future. They are cheaper and better than relying on the whims of foreign politicians to help protect your nation, and they generally have better training and experience than the army of your enemy.

If nothing else, they can create very painful delaying actions for a foreign aggressor, buying time for other arrangements.

Posted by Anonymoose 2011-05-15 13:01|| 2011-05-15 13:01|| Front Page Top

#2
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/world/middleeast/15prince.html_r=2&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2&pagewanted=all

Lots of interesting details from the NYSlimes's, who repeatedly questions the legality of US trainers without State Dept permission:

Late one night last November, a plane carrying dozens of Colombian men touched down in this glittering seaside capital. Whisked through customs by an Emirati intelligence officer...The Colombians had entered the United Arab Emirates posing as construction workers. In fact, they were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide, with $529 million from the oil-soaked sheikdom... The Colombians, along with South African and other foreign troops, are trained by retired American soldiers and veterans of the German and British special operations units and the French Foreign Legion, according to the former employees and American officials... To help fulfill his ambitions, Mr. Princes new company, Reflex Responses, obtained another multimillion-dollar contract to protect a string of planned nuclear power plants and to provide cybersecurity...Savvy and pro-Western, the prince( Sheik Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan) was educated at the Sandhurst military academy in Britain and formed close ties with American military officials. He is also one of the regions staunchest hawks on Iran...He sees the logic of war dominating the region, and this thinking explains his near-obsessive efforts to build up his armed forces, said a November 2009 cable from the American Embassy in Abu Dhabi that was obtained by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks... Although there was no expectation that the mercenary troops would be used for a stealth attack on Iran, Emirati officials talked of using them for a possible maritime and air assault to reclaim a chain of islands, mostly uninhabited, in the Persian Gulf that are the subject of a dispute between Iran and the U.A.E., the former employees said. Iran has sent military forces to at least one of the islands, Abu Musa, and Emirati officials have long been eager to retake the islands and tap their potential oil reserves...Corporate documents describe the battalions possible tasks: intelligence gathering, urban combat, the securing of nuclear and radioactive materials, humanitarian missions and special operations to destroy enemy personnel and equipment.... In recent years, the Emirati government has showered American defense companies with billions of dollars to help strengthen the countrys security. A company run by Richard A. Clarke, a former counterterrorism adviser during the Clinton and Bush administrations, has won several lucrative contracts to advise the U.A.E. on how to protect its infrastructure... To bolster the force, R2 recruited a platoon of South African mercenaries, including some veterans of Executive Outcomes, a South African company notorious for staging coup attempts or suppressing rebellions against African strongmen in the 1990s. The platoon was to function as a quick-reaction force, American officials and former employees said, and began training for a practice mission: a terrorist attack on the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai, the worlds tallest building. They would secure the situation before quietly handing over control to Emirati troops.

Glad someone has our backs in the region.

Posted by Lumpy Elmoluck5091 2011-05-15 13:01|| 2011-05-15 13:01|| Front Page Top

#3 One former Blackwater guard pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges in those killings, and a U.S. court reinstated charges against five others last month. Prince has since sold the firm, which changed its name to Xe. The firm denies wrongdoing.

The way things are going, maybe we're moving towards civilian trials for GI's in firefights involving enemy fatalities.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2011-05-15 13:16|| 2011-05-15 13:16|| Front Page Top

#4 The mercenary captains are either capable men or they are not

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2011-05-15 14:54|| 2011-05-15 14:54|| Front Page Top

#5 Ah, the World of Tomorrow.(Movie)
Mercenaries for hire.

Posted by Redneck Jim 2011-05-15 15:26|| 2011-05-15 15:26|| Front Page Top

23:52 European Conservative
23:31 tipper
23:06 Spique Hatfield8822
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22:52 Zhang Fei
22:50 JosephMendiola
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22:42 Spique Hatfield8822
22:35 JosephMendiola
22:33 Black Bart Sperert2436
22:32 European Conservative
22:30 JosephMendiola
22:27 JosephMendiola
22:25 Grunter
22:20 tipper
22:16 Barbara Skolaut
22:10 JosephMendiola
21:51 European Conservative
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20:15 tipper